CHAPTER XII.
A NEW SCHEME
I have said that Willie's father and mother used to talk without restraint in his presence. They had no fear of Willie's committing an indiscretion by repeating what he heard. One day at dinner the following conversation took place between them.
"I've had a letter from my mother, John," said Mrs Macmichael to her husband. "It's wonderful how well she manages to write, when she sees so badly."
"She might see well enough—at least a great deal better—if she would submit to an operation, said the doctor.
"At her age, John!" returned his wife in an expostulatory tone. "Do you really think it worth while—for the few years that are left her?"
"Worth while to see well for a few years!" exclaimed the doctor.
"Indeed, I do."
"But there's another thing I want to talk to you about now," said Mrs Macmichael. "Since old Ann's death, six months ago, she says she has been miserable, and if she goes on like this, it will shorten the few days that are left her. Effie, the only endurable servant she has had since Ann, is going to leave at the end of her half-year, and she says the thought of another makes her wretched. She may be a little hard to please, but after being used to one for so many years, it is no wonder if she be particular. I don't know what is to be done."
"I don't know, either—except you make her a present of Tibby," said her husband.
"John!" exclaimed Mrs Macmichael; and "John" burst out laughing.
"You don't think they'd pull together?" he said.
"Two old people—each with her own ways, and without any memories in common to bind them together! I'm surprised at your dreaming of such a thing," exclaimed his wife.
"But I didn't even dream of it; I only said it," returned her husband.
"It's time you knew when I was joking, wifie."
"You joke so dreadfully like earnest!" she answered.
"If only we had one more room in the house!" said the doctor, thoughtfully.
"Ah!" returned his wife, eagerly, "that would be a blessing! And though Tibby would be a thorn in every inch of grandmamma's body, if they were alone together, I have no doubt they would get on very well with me between them."
"I don't doubt it," said her husband, still thoughtfully.
"Couldn't we manage it somehow, John?" said Mrs Macmichael, half timidly, after a pause of some duration.
"I can't say I see how—at this moment," answered the doctor, "much as I should like it. But there's time yet, and we'll think it over, and talk about it, and perhaps we may hit upon some plan or other. Most things may be done; and everything necessary can be done _some_how. So we won't bother our minds about it, but only our brains, and see what they can do for us."
With this he rose and went to his laboratory.
Willie rose also and went straight to his own room. Having looked all round it thoughtfully several times, he went out again on the landing, whence a ladder led up into a garret running the whole length of the roof of the cottage.
"My room would do for grannie," he said to himself; "and I could sleep up there. A shake-down in the corner would do well enough for me."
He climbed the ladder, pushed open the trap-door, crept half through, and surveyed the gloomy place.
"There's no window but a skylight!" he said; and his eyes smarted as if the tears were about to rush into them. "What shall I do? Wheelie will be useless!—Well, I can't help it; and if I can't help it, I can bear it. To have grannie comfortable will be better than to look out of the window ever so much."
He drew in his head, came down the ladder with a rush, and hurried off to school.
At supper he laid his scheme before his father and mother.
They looked very much pleased with their boy. But his father said at once—
"No, no, Willie. It won't do. I'm glad you've been the first to think of something—only, unfortunately, your plan won't work. You can't sleep there."
"I'll engage to sleep wherever there's room to lie down; and if there isn't I'll engage to sleep sitting or standing," said Willie, whose mother had often said she wished she could sleep like Willie. "And as I don't walk in my sleep," he added, "the trap-door needn't be shut."
"Mice, Willie!" said his mother, in a tone of much significance.
"The cat and I are good friends," returned Willie. "She'll be pleased enough to sleep with me."
"You don't hit the thing at all," said his father. "I wonder a practical man like you, Willie, doesn't see it at once. Even if I were at the expense of ceiling the whole roof with lath and plaster, we should find you, some morning in summer, baked black as a coal; or else, some morning in winter frozen so stiff that, when we tried to lift you, your arm snapped off like a dry twig of elder."
"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed Willie; "then there would be the more room for grannie."
His father laughed with him, but his mother looked a little shocked.
"No, Willie," said his father again; "you must make another attempt. You must say with Hamlet when he was puzzled for a plan—'About my brains!' Perhaps they will suggest something wiser next time."
Willie lay so long awake that night, thinking, that Wheelie pulled him before he had had a wink of sleep. He got up, of course, and looked from the window.
The day was dreaming grandly. The sky was pretty clear in front, and full of sparkles of light, for the stars were kept in the background by the moon, which was down a little towards the west. She had sunk below the top of a huge towering cloud, the edges of whose jags and pinnacles she bordered with a line of silvery light. Now this cloud rose into the sky from just behind the ruins, and looking a good deal like upheaved towers and spires, made Willie think within himself what a grand place the priory must have been, when its roofs and turrets rose up into the sky.
"They say a lot of people lived in it then!" he thought with himself as he stood gazing at the cloud.
Suddenly he gave a great jump, and clapped his hands so loud that he woke his father.
"Is anything the matter, my boy?" he asked, opening Willie's door, and peeping in.
"No, papa, nothing," answered Willie. "Only something that came into my head with a great bounce!"
"Ah!—Where did it come from, Willie?"
"Out of that cloud there. Isn't it a grand one?"
"Grand enough certainly to put many thoughts into a body's head, Willie.
What did it put into yours?"
"Please, I would rather not tell just yet," answered Willie, "—if you don't mind, father."
"Not a bit, my boy. Tell me just when you please, or don't tell me at all. I should like to hear it, but only at your pleasure, Willie."
"Thank you, father. I do want to tell you, you know, but not just yet."
"Very well, my boy. Now go to bed, and sleep may better the thought before the morning."
Willie soon fell asleep now, for he believed he had found what he wanted.
He was up earlier than usual the next morning, and out in the garden.
"Surely," he said to himself, "those ruins, which once held so many monks, might manage even yet to find room for me!"
He went wandering about amongst them, like an undecided young bird looking for the very best possible spot to build its nest in. The spot Willie sought was that which would require the least labour and least material to make it into a room.
Before he heard the voice of Tibby, calling him to come to his porridge, he had fixed upon one; and in the following chapter I will tell you what led him to choose it. All the time between morning and afternoon school, he spent in the same place; and when he came home in the evening, he was accompanied by Mr Spelman, who went with him straight to the ruins. There they were a good while together; and when Willie at length came in, his mother saw that his face was more than usually radiant, and was certain he had some new scheme or other in his head.
CHAPTER XIII.
WILLIE'S NEST IN THE RUINS
The spot he had fixed upon was in the part of the ruins next the cottage, not many yards from the back door of it. I have said there were still a few vaulted places on the ground-level used by the family. The vault over the wood-house was perfectly sound and weather-tight, and, therefore, as Willie and the carpenter agreed, quite safe to roost upon. In a corner outside, and now open to the elements, had once been a small winding stone stair, which led to the room above, on the few broken fragments of which, projecting from the two sides of the corner, it was just possible to climb, and so reach the top of the vault. Willie had often got up to look out through a small, flat-arched window into the garden of the manse. When Mr Shepherd, the clergyman, who often walked in his garden, caught sight of him, he always came nearer, and had a chat with him; for he did not mind such people as Willie looking into his garden, and seeing what he was about. Sometimes also little Mona, a girl of his own age, would be running about; and she also, if she caught sight of Willie, was sure to come hopping and skipping like a bird to have a talk with him, and beg him to take her up, which, he as often assured her, was all but impossible. To this place Mr Spelman and Willie climbed, and there held consultation whether and how it could be made habitable. The main difficulty was, how to cover it in; for although the walls were quite sound a long way up, it lay open to the sky. But about ten feet over their heads they saw the opposing holes in two of the walls where the joists formerly sustaining the floor of the chamber above had rested; and Mr Spelman thought that, without any very large outlay either of time or material, he could there lay a floor, as it were, and then turn it into a roof by covering it with cement, or pitch, or something of the sort, concerning which he would take counsel with his friend Mortimer, the mason.
"But," said Willie, "that would turn it into the bottom of a cistern; for the walls above would hold the rain in, and what would happen then? Either it must gather till it reached the top, or the weight of it would burst the walls, or perhaps break through my roof and drown me."
"It is easy to avoid that," said Mr Spelman. "We have only to lay on the cement a little thicker at one side, and slope the surface down to the other, where a hole through the wall, with a pipe in it, would let the water off."
"I know!" cried Willie. "That's what they called a gurgoyle!"
"I don't know anything about that," said the carpenter; "I know it will carry off the water."
"To be sure," said Willie. "It's capital."
"But," said Mr Spelman, "it's rather too serious a job this to set about before asking the doctor's leave. It will cost money."
"Much?" asked Willie, whose heart sank within him.
"Well, that depends on what you count much," answered Spelman. "All I can say is, it wouldn't be anything out of your father's pocket."
"I don't see how that can be," said Willie. "—Cost money, and yet be nothing out of my father's pocket! I've only got threepence ha'-penny."
"Your father and I will talk about it," said the carpenter mysteriously, and offered no further information.
"There seems to be always some way of doing a thing," thought Willie to himself.
He little knew by what a roundabout succession of cause and effect his father's kindness to Spelman was at this moment returning to him, one of the links of connection being this project of Willie's own.
The doctor being out at the time, the carpenter called again later in the evening; and they had a long talk together—to the following effect.
Spelman having set forth his scheme, and the doctor having listened in silence until he had finished—
"But," said Mr Macmichael, "that will cost a good deal, I fear, and I have no money to spare."
"Mr Macmichael," said Spelman solemnly, his long face looking as if some awful doom were about to issue from the middle of it, "you forget how much I am in your debt."
"No, I don't," returned the doctor. "But neither do I forget that it takes all your time and labour to provide for your family; and what will become of them if you set about this job, with no return in prospect but the satisfaction of clearing off of an old debt?"
"It is very good of you, sir, to think of that," said the carpenter; "but, begging your pardon, I've thought of it too. Many's the time you've come after what I'd ha' called work hours to see my wife—yes, in the middle of the night, more than once or twice; and why shouldn't I do the same? Look ye here, sir. If you're not in a main hurry, an' 'll give me time, I'll do the heavy work o' this job after six o'clock o' the summer nights, with Sandy to help me, and I'll charge you no more than a journeyman's wages by the hour. And what Willie and Sandy can do by themselves—he's a clever boy Sandy; but he's a genius Willie—what they can do by themselves, and that's not a little, is nothing to me. And if you'll have the goodness, when I give you the honest time, at fourpence ha'penny an hour, just to strike that much off my bill, I'll be more obliged to you than I am now. Only I fear I must make you pay for the material—not a farthing more than it costs me at the saw-mills, up at the Grange, for the carriage 'll come in with other lots I must have."
"It's a generous offer, Spelman," said the doctor, "and I accept it heartily, though you are turning the tables of obligation upon me. You'll have done far more for me than I ever did for you."
"I wish that were like to be true, sir, but it isn't. My wife's not a giantess yet, for all you've done for her."
Spelman set to work at once. New joists were inserted in the old walls, boarded over, and covered, after the advice of Mortimer, with some cunning mixture to keep out the water. Then a pipe was put through the wall to carry it off—which pipe, if it was not masked with an awful head, as the remains of more than one on the Priory showed it would have been in the days of the monks, yet did it work as faithfully without it.
When it came to the plastering of the walls, Mr Spelman, after giving them full directions, left the two boys to do that between them. Although there was no occasion to roughen these walls by clearing away the old mortar from between the stones, the weather having done that quite sufficiently, and all the preparation they wanted for the first thin coat was to be well washed down, it took them a good many days, working all their time, to lay on the orthodox three coats of plaster. Mr Spelman had wisely boarded the ceiling, so that they had not to plaster that.
Meantime he was preparing a door and window-frames in the shop. The room had probably been one of the prior's, for it was much too large and lofty for a mere cell, and had two windows. But these were fortunately small, not like the splendid ones in the chapel and refectory, else they would have been hard to fill with glass.
"I'm afraid you'll be starved with cold, Willie," said his father one day, after watching the boys at work for a few minutes. "There's no fireplace."
"Oh! that doesn't signify," answered Willie. "Look how thick the walls are! and I shall have plenty of blankets on my bed. Besides, we can easily put a little stove in, if it's wanted."
But when the windows were fitted and fixed, Mr Macmichael saw to his dismay that they were not made to open. They had not even a pane on hinges.
"This'll never do, Willie," he said. "This is far worse than no chimney."
Willie took his father by the coat, and led him to a corner, where a hole went right through the wall into another room—if that can be called a room which had neither floor nor ceiling.
"There, father!" he said; "I am going to fit a slide over this hole, and then I can let in just as much or as little air as I please."
"It would have been better to have one at least of the windows made to open. You will only get the air from the ruins that way, whereas you might have had all the scents of Mr Shepherd's wallflowers and roses."
"As soon as Mr Spelman has done with the job," said Willie, "I will make them both to come wide open on hinges; but I don't want to bother him about it, for he has been very kind, and I can do it quite well myself."
This satisfied his father.
At length the floor was boarded; a strong thick door was fitted tight; a winding stair of deal inserted where the stone one had been, and cased in with planks, well pitched on the outside; and now Willie's mother was busy making little muslin curtains for his windows, and a carpet for the middle of the room.
In the meantime, his father and mother had both written to his grandmother, telling her how Willie had been using his powers both of invention and of labour to make room for her, and urging her to come and live with them, for they were all anxious to have her to take care of. But, in fact, small persuasion was necessary, for the old lady was only too glad to accept the invitation; and before the warm weather of autumn was over, she was ready to go to them. By this time Willie's room was furnished. All the things from his former nest had been moved into it; the bed with the chintz curtains, covered with strange flowers and birds; the old bureau, with the many drawers inside the folding cover, in which he kept all his little treasures; the table at which he read books that were too big to hold, such as Raleigh's History of the World and Josephus; the old oblong mirror that hung on the wall, with an outspread gilt eagle at the top of it; the big old arm-chair that had belonged to his great-grandfather, who wrote his sermons in it—for all the things the boy had about him were old, and in all his after-life he never could bear new furniture. And now his grandmother's furniture began to appear; and a great cart-load of it from her best bedroom was speedily arranged in Willie's late quarters, and as soon as they were ready for her, Mrs Macmichael set out in a post-chaise to fetch her mother.
CHAPTER XIV.
WILLIE'S GRANDMOTHER
Willie was in a state of excitement until she arrived, looking for her as eagerly as if she had been a young princess. So few were the opportunities of travelling between Priory Leas and the town where his grandmother lived, that he had never seen her, and curiosity had its influence as well as affection. Great, therefore, was his delight when at last the chaise came round the corner of the street, and began to draw up in order to halt at their door. The first thing he caught sight of was a curious bonnet, like a black coal-scuttle upside down, inside which, when it turned its front towards him, he saw a close-fitting widow's cap, and inside that a kind old face, and if he could have looked still further, he would have seen a kind young soul inside the kind old face. She smiled sweetly when she saw him, but was too tired to take any further notice of him until she had had tea.
During that meal Willie devoted himself to a silent waiting upon her, watching and trying to anticipate her every want. When she had eaten a little bread and butter and an egg, and drunk two cups of tea, she lay back in her own easy chair, which had been placed for her by the side of the parlour fire, and fell fast asleep for ten minutes, breathing so gently that Willie got frightened, and thought she was dead. But all at once she opened her eyes wide, and made a sign to him to come to her.
"Sit down there," she said, pushing a little footstool towards him.
Willie obeyed, and sat looking up in her face.
"So," she said, "you're the little man that can do everything?"
"No, grannie," answered Willie, laughing. "I wish I could; but I am only learning to do a few things; and there's not one of them I can do right yet."
"Do you know what they call you?"
"The boys at school call me Six-fingered Jack," said Willie.
"There!" said his grandmother. "I told you so."
"I'm glad it's only a nickname, grannie; but if it weren't, it would soon be one, for I'm certain the finger that came after the little one would be so much in the way it would soon get cut off."
"Anyhow, supposing you only half as clever a fellow as you pass for, I want to try you. Have you any objection to service? I should like to hire you for my servant—my own special servant, you understand."
"All right, grannie; here I am!" cried Willie, jumping up. "What shall I do first?"
"Sit down again instantly, and wait till we've finished the bargain. I must first have you understand that though I don't want to be hard upon you, you must come when I call you, and do what I tell you."
"Of course, grannie. Only I can't when I'm at school, you know."
"I don't want to be told that. And I'm not going to be a tyrant. But I had no idea you were such a silly! For all your cleverness, you've positively never asked me what wages I would give you."
"Oh! I don't want any wages, grannie. I like to do things for people; and you're my very own grandmother, besides, you know."
"Well, I suppose I must settle your wages for you. I mean to pay you by the job. It's an odd arrangement for a servant, but it will suit me best. And as you don't ask any, I needn't pay you more than I like myself."
"Certainly not, grannie. I'm quite satisfied."
"Meantime, no engagement of a servant ought to be counted complete without earnest."
"I'm quite in earnest, grannie," said Willie, who did not know the meaning of the word as his new mistress used it. They all laughed.
"I don't see what's funny," said Willie, laughing too, however.
But when they explained to him what earnest meant, then he laughed with understanding, as well as with good will.
"So," his grandmother went on, "I will give you earnest, which, you know, binds you my servant. But for how long, Willie?"
"Till you're tired of me, grannie. Only, you know, I'm papa and mamma's servant first, and you may have to arrange with them sometimes; for what should I do if you were all to want me at once?"
"We'll easily manage that. I'll arrange with them, as you say. And now, here's your earnest."
As she spoke, she put into his hand what Willie took to be a shilling.
But when he glanced at it, he found himself mistaken.
"Thank you, grannie," he said, trying not to show himself a little disappointed, for he had had another scheme in his head some days, and the shilling would have been everything towards that.
"Do you know what grannie has given you, Willie?" said his mother.
"Yes, mother—such a pretty brass medal!"
"Show it me, dear. Why, Willie! it's no brass medal, child;—it's a sovereign!"
"No-o-o-o! Is it? O grannie!" he cried, and went dancing about the room, as if he would actually fly with delight.
Willie had never seen a sovereign, for that part of the country was then like Holland—you never saw gold money there. To get it for him, his grandmother had had to send to the bank in the county town.
After this she would often give him sixpence or a shilling, and sometimes even a half-crown when she asked him to do anything she thought a little harder than usual; so that Willie had now plenty of money with which to carry out his little plans. When remonstrated with by her daughter for giving him so much, his grandmother would say—
"Look how the boy spends it!—always doing something with it! He never wastes it on sweets—not he!—My Willie's above that!"
The old lady generally spoke of him as if she were the chief if not the sole proprietor of the boy.
"I'm sure I couldn't do better with it," she would add; "and that you'll see when he comes to be a man. He'll be the making of you all."
"But, mother, you can't afford it."
"How do you know that? I can afford it very well. I've no house-rent to pay; and I am certain it is the very best return I can make you for your kindness. What I do for Willie will prove to have been done for us all."
Certainly Willie's grandmother showed herself a very wise old lady. The wisest old ladies are always those with young souls looking out of their eyes. And few things pleased Willie more than waiting upon her. He had a passion for being useful, and as his grandmother needed his help more than any one else, her presence in the house was an endless source of pleasure to him.
But his father grew anxious. He did not like her giving Willie so much money—not that he minded Willie having or spending the money, for he believed that the spending would keep the having from hurting him; but he feared lest through her gifts the purity of the boy's love for his grandmother might be injured, and the service which at first had looked only to her as its end might degenerate into a mere serving of her for the sake of her shillings.
He had, therefore, a long talk with her about it. She was indignant at the notion of the least danger of spoiling Willie, but so anxious to prove there was none that she agreed to the test proposed by his father—which was, to drop all money transactions between them for a few months, giving Willie no reason for the change. Grannie, however, being in word and manner, if possible, still kinder to him than ever—and no wonder, seeing she could no more, for the present, let her love out at her pocket-hole—and Willie having, therefore, no anxiety lest he should have displeased her, he soon ceased to think even of the change; except, indeed, sometimes when he wanted a little money very much, and then he would say to himself that he was afraid poor grannie had been too liberal at first, and had spent all her money upon him; therefore he must try to be the more attentive to her now. So the result was satisfactory; and the more so that, for all her boasting, his grandmother had not been able to help trembling a little, half with annoyance, half with anxiety, as she let the first few of his services pass without the customary acknowledgment.
"There!" she said one day, at length, triumphantly, to Mr Macmichael; "what do you think of my Willie now? Three months over and gone, and where are your fears? I hope you will trust my judgment a little better after this."
"I'm very glad, anyhow, you put him to the trial," said his father. "It will do him good."
"He wants less of that than most people, Mr Macmichael—present company not excepted," said the old lady, rather nettled, but pretending to be more so than she really was.